Generally, debriders include a handpiece and a cutting portion. The handpiece includes a motor that rotates one or more rotating parts in the cutting portion. The cutting portion includes a cutting window where the cutting window exposes a cutting blade. The cutting blade is used to remove tissue, cartilage, bone, or a combination thereof. The cutting blade during use may result in bleeding and the cutting blade may include an energy source to perform electrosurgery. Typically, each debrider includes an integral tip, and during use a user selects a debrider based upon the intended use of the debrider such as coagulation, suction, cutting, cauterization, or a combination thereof. Generally, each handpiece is only usable with one style of tip so that a different style tip cannot be installed in a handpiece and the debrider used for a different purpose or to perform a different function. Some tips may be used with multiple handpieces: however, some of the functionality may not work or may not work properly when installed in a different handpiece.
Further, most of the electrical components of a debrider are large (i.e., not conducive for placement in a handheld device) and/or fragile such that the components are located as far away from the operation site as possible and/or the components are housed in a protective chamber so that the components are too bulky to be located in the debrider. Moreover, these components when located in parts of the debrider may be subjected to contact with fluids which may cause a short and/or damage the components so that one or more functions of the debrider may be compromised. Additionally, when one or more of the debrider parts are cleaned after use and the cleaning process may damage the electrical components. For example, a typical method of cleaning is placing the debrider components in an autoclave and heating the components for a predetermined amount of time and then placing the components in a fluid to rapidly cool the components. This rapid heating and rapid cooling may damage the electrical components and thus these electrical components may not be readily placed in parts of the debrider that may be cleaned.
Examples of some surgical instruments may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,810,809; 5,814,044; 5,904.681; 5,899,915; 6,074,386; 6,752,816; 6,979,332; 7,237,990; and 7,674,263 all of which are incorporated by reference herein for all purposes. It would be attractive to have interchangeable tips that can be installed in a handpiece and all of the functionality of each tip works without any user input. It would be attractive to have an interchangeable tip that includes an identification circuit in the interchangeable tip so that the interchangeable tip communicates with the handpiece and adjoining circuitry so that the adjoining circuitry controls each interchangeable tip based upon the identification circuit. It would be attractive to have a control switch in the interchangeable tip that controls one or more functions of the interchangeable tip. What is needed is an interchangeable tip that includes circuit elements that may be subjected to fluids during debriding and the circuit elements function properly and/or protect a user from shock due to any shorts caused by the fluid.